About Play…

In the early spring my parents and I went to the Guilford green where we walked in circles along twisting sidewalk paths.

Mommy held my hand. Daddy looked down at me, asking questions, poking fun. His eyebrows lifted high, his eyes wide open.

I laughed more than I spoke.

“It’s almost Easter,” Mommy said, looking first at Daddy and then down to me, “You’ll need to think carefully about what you’d like to ask the Easter Bunny for.”

I nodded up at her, open mouthed, earnest, and seriously considering.

“What are all the other little girls asking for?” I wondered, looking from Mommy to Daddy and back again.

“Well I’m not sure,” Mommy said, “Maybe we need to ask the Easter Bunny himself.”

I nodded.

“Would you like to do that?”

I nodded again.

We stopped at a phone booth – two pay phones positioned back to back.

Mommy held me up, put a quarter in the slot, dialed a number.

“Ok,” she said and handed me the thick black receiver.

I held on tightly. The phone rang once, twice, three times before a voice answered.

“Hello?” it squeaked, “Hello?”

“Hi,” I answered, eyes stretched wide, like white mooncakes, little fingers clutching the metal cord.

“This is the Easter Bunny speaking, who’s this?”

“I’m Allie,” I answered.

“Oh Allie, yes yes, I’ve expected your call.”

We talked for whole minutes, the Easter Bunny, presumably from his burrow somewhere and I from my mother’s arms. From one of two payphones on the Guilford green, where, on the other end of the booth, hidden from view, my father stood, speaking into the receiver in an artificially high bunny squeak, to his only daughter on the other end.

Back in the days when it was all about play.